Baftas diversity controversy

We are at that time of the year again. Award ceremonies such as the Oscars and Baftas nominate and hand out awards to a non-diverse group of people. There will be come controversy and some uproar, passionate speeches and a commitment to change, however, unless there are measurable targets and changes in  processes, we will be having the same conversation next year.

Joaquin Phoenix upon winning his award for best Actor gave a passionate speech about his privilege, stating “I feel conflicted because so many of my fellow actors that are deserving don’t have that same privilege. I think that we send a very clear message to people of colour that you’re not welcome here”. Following the speech Lulu Wang tweeted “an uncomfortable silence filled the hall for a long noticeable moment, thank you Joaquin”

We need more of these uncomfortable moments, and these need to be consistently achieved for a period of time. The reality behind the awkward silence is the realisation that often, people confuse privilege for talent. The Joaquin Phoenix speech left a moment of self-reflection to everyone in the room and hopefully to anyone who listens to it or reads about it.

Each sector has its own diversity challenges that needs to be addressed and the awkward silence of self-reflection could spark the change. Leaders of organisations need to separate what was achieved by privilege and what was achieved by talent. People from diverse communities have the talent and the ability to work their way up to leadership roles and win awards, however they lack belief that the opportunity is available to them.  When looking at non diverse nominees/winners of awards and non-diverse management teams, the responsibility of providing the opportunity moves to the leaders of the organisations through visible and publicised changes.

Lets spend the rest of 2020 creating more awkward silences.

At Ohcul jobs, we promote diversity within the workplace through removing the opportunity for people’s unconscious bias to reflect in the recruitment process.

Employee diversity provides a number of benefits to any organisation (large and small). Ethnically diverse companies perform 35% better than their industry median and gender diverse companies are 15% more likely to haver returns above the industry median. With the national customer base becoming more diverse, it is important that a company is representative to fully understand its clients’ needs and, according to the latest research, 67% of employees cite a diverse workforce is a key factor when looking at a role.

At Ohcul, we remove the opportunity for hidden bias from a CV review stage. Our unique tool removes identifying data from a clients CV allowing a recruiter to progress the best candidates.

If you would like some more information you can contact us on info@ohcul.com or visit the web site www.ohcul.com